-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Dierk van den Berg Sent: September 9, 2003 1:53 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Megillot] J.B. Lightfoot on Essenes online; retracement
Philipp Melanchthon's fatherly friend Johannes Reuchlin (1455-1522) published in 1506 his epoch-making De Rudimentis Hebraicis, based upon the grammatical and exegetical tradition of R. David Kimhi, his teacher and doorkeeper of his entrance into the mystic world of the pythagorizing Cabbala, expounded later in the De Arte Cabbalistica (1517). We may, then, easily trace back the mystico-cabbalistic vita Pythagorae down to Josephus' pythagorizing 'Essene' source in bell. 2.119-161 and ant 18.18-22, a source that bravely follows the principles of Hermipp in c.Ap 164f. and partly even verbatim the reports of Timaios in Jamblich v. P. 256f. However, that does not explain the etymology of the pythagorizing 'Essenes', but it pinpoints the list of medieval authors of the Cabbala one has to consider now - a few are mentioned in Papus, La Cabbale, Paris 1902, but I haven't yet read their works. Unfortunately, the Islamic and Jewish philosophers of the 10th c CE, eg. Moses b. Esra, Sharastani, Alghazzali, Alfarabi, Ibn Challican, Saadiah Gaon and the Karaites David Almokamez and Abraham Hababli were hardly interested in a vita Pythagorae, more likely they ogled with the 'golden verses' of Pythagoras. If the link to Johannes Reuchlin is true, well, then Philipp Melanchthon is indeed the one who has introduced the "wirckende Essei" into the Chronica Carionis. Dierk ------- Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen (NL) www.kun.nl _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
